Day One: Cautionary

Okay, so I have just literally fled, I do mean literally, the hospitality suite at the hotel where many of my coworkers and industry contacts are boozing it up. I'm one of the planners, a representative of "authority" - it's my job to order everyone to show up for mandatory breakfast at 7:00 a.m. - and I want to party it up just as bad as anybody else... I think the worst part is that everyone can clearly tell that I was made for partying, not for ordering perfectly innocent coworkers out of their beds at an ungodly hour!

And yet - and this is where, I'm not trying to be too immodest, but this is where my actual superpower comes in - I genuinely understand why we have all the fugly stickly regulations, and am prepared to defend them, sympathetically, until everyone else understands them just as well and follows them voluntarily, no matter how much rum they had tonight.

But first I have to perform a James-Bond-esque escape from the hospitality room, trying desperately not to spill my Sprite, zig-zagging down the corridor, reaching the elevator scarcely ahead of my laughing pursuers, and punching the button for my floor repeatedly until the doors close, I heave a sigh of relief, and find my way back safely to my room. Don't answer the phone!!!

Highlight of the day, earlier: dinner at a lake house and boating on the lake, courtesy of the host CVB, went to hell when the boat ran out of gas in the middle of the lake, stranding a dozen of our attendees. I feel bad for the CVB, who did indeed double-and-triple-check with the boat rental company that they had a full tank. Certainly not the CVB's fault. Nothing trumps rampant incompetence. Nothing. Do you hear me? Write it down! You really might need to remember it later.

Tomorrow I have an exceptionally early morning, and no business being awake this late. So good night, sweet, reader(s) - and tomorrow is another day! I brought running shoes for the hospitality room.

Everybody's Got a Story

I have this neighbor - he lives on my street, just on the other side of the cross-street three houses down from me. I see him most mornings when I'm on the way to work. He's a small, wiry guy who runs with his dog.

He doesn't jog. He runs. Like hell. He runs, the dog in full turbo-blast mode ahead of him, as if the dog were dragging him along and it's all he can do to keep up. Yesterday he appeared completely unprepared for the exercise, as he was wearing sandals instead of running shoes. He waves when we pass each other, but doesn't speak - I should imagine he's a bit out of breath.

It can't be fun. Why does he do it?

Perhaps his girlfriend is a high-powered lawyer who puts in 80-hour workweeks and doesn't have time to walk her dog. When they started dating, he was a bit intimidated; so to impress her, he told her he loved animals (he actually can't stand them) and volunteered to walk her dog for her. It worked like a charm and he's now moved in, but at what a terrible cost! He must go out twice a day and run breathlessly for miles, tethered to that miserable dog, which appears to be some kind of cheetah mix. He waves to the people he passes just because he can't speak; but what he's really trying to say is "Help me... please... for the love of God, help!"

When he and his girlfriend met he weighed about 300 pounds.

This story can't end well, because, you know, he's already quite skinny. He's only going to get thinner. He has to eat vast quantities of calorie-rich food just to maintain as much weight as he does, but eventually the battle will be lost and he'll dwindle away altogether. Poor guy!

And his girlfriend, having wasted away the life of yet another victim, will sing her siren song over at the nearby state agency and pick out a new one. Oh no! Run away!

Of course I suppose there's an outside possibility that's not really his story. But I've never talked to him, so it'll have to do for now.